The SVdP Free Dining Room
For more than 30 years, the SVdP Free Dining Room has provided a hot daily meal to the hungry and homeless in one of the deepest pockets of poverty in Northern California. The Dining Room is the only major facility in Alameda County providing meals to the hungry seven days a week.
Located at the edge of Downtown and West Oakland, the Dining Room provides a critical community service:
- Serving nearly 1,000 hot meals per day to people in need.
- Offering community service opportunities to 1,000 volunteers who provide 46,000 hours of support annually – the equivalent of 22 full-time employees.
- Providing hot meals to other nonprofits, such as low-income schools, for a modest handling charge.
- Collecting more than $1.5 million in food donations from grocery stores, food producers, suppliers and restaurants to help reduce the Dining Room’s operating costs and prevent food from going to waste.
The Dining room is a vital doorway to other services for those whose lives are often at a standstill. We first encounter most of our guests at the Dining Room, over a hot meal. The welcoming atmosphere sets the stage for many to seek out other services right there on the downtown campus.
The drop-in support services and the Community Center services on the downtown campus offer programs and assistance that provide many of our clients with steps toward stability.